I have tried to add a comments.php to my custom theme so I can remove the website field and so I could edit the default values of the fields and remove the labels. When I add a comments.php all of my comments disappear and the comments are no longer functional. I have no idea how to make these modifications.

I've tried editing comments-template.php but removing the field in that file doesn't remove it from the site, I am assuming because it is already in the database.

I am new to PHP so any details on how I can get these text fields edited would be great.